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President names Radebe as an envoy to Eswatini

Hajra Omarjee

In his first step aimed at quelling violence in Eswatini, President Cyril Ramaphosa is sending former cabinet minister Jeff Radebe among envoys to meet the country’s absolute ruler.

Candith Mashego-Dlamini, the deputy minister of international relations & co-operation, will be the most senior government representative in the delegation, which was due to travel on Thursday morning, according to people in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc).

After months of silence on the violence that has gripped the landlocked country, the Sadc organ on defence, politics and security co-operation, of which Ramaphosa is chair, is deploying envoys to meet King Mswati III and “engage other stakeholders” in order to assess the situation on the ground, the people said.

The envoys will be accompanied by a delegation from the Sadc secretariat.

Before standing down ahead of the 2019 elections, Radebe was SA’s longest continuously serving cabinet member, having

joined the cabinet in Nelson Mandela’s administration in 1994. His most recent position was as energy minister.

Ramaphosa’s previous attempt to send a delegation to deal with a regional crisis ended in a farce when then defence minister Nosiviwe MapisaNqakula gave an ANC delegation a lift on a military aircraft for a “fact-finding mission” in Zimbabwe. Ramaphosa said then that the minister had shown an “error of judgment”.

SA and its neighbours have faced criticism for their inertia as the small country sank deeper into crisis. Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, has been in turmoil since late June, when police reportedly killed dozens of protesters amid mounting dissatisfaction with Mswati’s rule.

The latest round of instability has seen transport, telecoms and schooling being suspended at intervals. MTN found itself at the centre of controversy in July when it admitted to co-operating with a government order to close down internet services.

Violent protests have escalated to the point where major towns in the kingdom have shut down and at least 28 people have died as police clashed with protesters in some of the worst unrest in the country’s history, according to local media.

What began earlier in 2021 as demonstrations against police brutality escalated into a bigger movement against Mswati, an autocrat who has kept a tight grip on every branch of the government for more than three decades. The country has an electoral system that doesn’t allow political parties, and in June the government banned the delivery of petitions.

Mswati flaunts his use of public money to fund his lavish lifestyle and he has 15 wives, each of whom has a palace paid for by the administration.

In 2009, Forbes estimated his personal wealth at $200m, making him one of the richest monarchs in the world, in one of the poorest countries on earth.

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2021-10-21T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-21T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://tisobg.pressreader.com/article/281608128632011

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